Sya's Project 365 for 2009

Day 41 - The Setting Sun

2009-02-10T18:59:00.003+08:00

Normally, if I open the windows in my room in the morning, it would already be closed by my mum or my sister by the time I came back from work. Today, just for the fun of it (or actually the laziness in me.. LOL!) I decided to let it open until about 630pm. And I'm glad of it cos I got to take this photo! I know for some people, this is just a so and so shot, but I love it and that is all that matters... :)

And oh, good news! I'm just about to finish paying for my camera. Yay!! When I bought it last March, my dad paid for it, partly as early birthday present to me. (My birthday is not until September, so that's how early it is...) Anyway, since it's only partly a present, I have to pay my dad the rest of the money so I had been doing that religiously since then. A couple of nights ago, I felt compelled to ask my dad how much do I still owe him and surprisingly, he said that this is the last month for me to pay, then I'm done. Yay!! :D

Day 40 - First Try at Hybrid!

2009-02-09T18:55:00.000+08:00

Can you believe it? I finally did something that is hybrid, thanks to the Random Hybrid challenges at SSD. Well, it's just a small and simple card but I'm already looking forward to do more. :D

Day 39 - Being Silly

2009-02-09T11:07:00.003+08:00

We went out last night to Domino's, to celebrate my SIL's birthday. We normally went to some very expensive restaurants for our birthday dinners last year but this year, we're trying to change things around, so we went to normal eatery instead. Oh well, it's still good and it's the company that counts. And as usual, my full attention is on Syara and Azfar. Love taking their photos!! Anyway, instead of showing off their usual cute photos, let's see some of their silly ones.

She was rolling her eyes this time. Glad I captured it. I can even imagine the layout I can do with this photo already.. :D

Azfar with soup dribbling down his chin. He just threw up all over himself before we had dinner and was all smiles during dinner. So funny...

Day 38 - Photoshoot at Putrajaya

2009-02-09T10:58:00.005+08:00

Me, my sisters, our nephew and my sister's friend went to Putrajaya on Saturday to attend my sister's friend's daughter's birthday party. It was fun! The food was good, the company even better and Azfar was a bit fussy at first but he ended up having a good mood throughout the party. Well, mostly. Five o'clock came around and we made our move to a park nearby. I had already told my sister that I wanted to have a photoshoot, so that's what we're gonna. Part of my new 'improving-my-photography-skills' list is to have some kind of photoshoot or other during weekend, so here's the first one. Overall, I'm really happy with how the photos turned out. I'm still learning to work with the camera and totally looking forward to learn. I can't wait until next week! Hopefully we can go bike-riding or something cool like that...

Here are some of my favourite photos...

Day 31 - Day 37

2009-02-09T10:15:00.003+08:00

Day 31 - Why a photo of potatoes of all things? My mom is back home from our hometown last night, so that means good food, which makes my brother soooo darn happy. Mom cooked yummylicious chicken kurma for us today!

Day 32 - Mom bought head scarves for Syara from Kelantan. She had been looking high and low for them and only managed to get the ones that she likes there. See the green colored cloth in front of the laptop? That's the second piece of head scarf. Syara tried on the peach colored one first and when we asked her to try the green one, she refused, probably is the peach one is much nicer than the green, since it's embellished (for lack of better words) with flowers and such while the green one is just a plain one. This was she looked while playing dress up with dolls on stardoll.com. LOL!!

Day 33 - Bought a new lipstick a couple of days ago, along with the new shoes. Today is the first day I ever wore lipstick to work. Before this, I usually only wore lipgloss, so I felt a bit different. Good kind of different though.. :)

Day 34 - I don't know but I always felt like laughing when I saw these bottles in my bathroom cabinet. The first bottle says strawberry but since when does strawberry comes in blue? LOL!! I actually used an old bottle for that. It's supposed to be kiwi. And the second bottle says Peach but it's actually strawberry. The third bottle is the only correct one.. :)

Day 35 - Just some random photo of a light fixture I have in my room. This is the light that I used as my night light.

Day 36 - The theme for today is water cos there's no water in the whole university for a whole day. The students went crazy, thus cancellation of classes throughout the day. But I didn't bring my camera, so I took this shot when I came home instead. It's a tea mix that I'm drinking for energy. Love this stuff! I always bring it to the office and would sip some throughout the day but I didn't drink that much today since there's no water and it would be such a hassle if I have to go to the toilet and such.

Day 37 - I had been missing Yana, my good friend back in uni, and tonight I had the chance to chat with her through YM. We didn't really talk that long but it was good that we get the chance to do that. We talked about getting married. She told me she has this plan of getting engaged by this year and getting married next year. We talked about my plan of getting married on my birthday this year cos it's such a good number: 20092009. But of course since both of us did not have any candidate so to speak, there's a very slim chance of that becoming a reality. Unless by some twist of fate I meet someone who wants to get married fast! Any taker? *winks*

(Anyway, if you wonder why I took a photo of a Rubik's Cube today, it's because I have always associated the cube with Yana. She was the one who introduced me to the cube and got me hooked on it!)

Day 30 - New Shoes

2009-01-30T19:37:00.004+08:00

I finally went out today and bought a new pair of new shoes, after saying time and time again that I would buy one. My old Clarks in suffering from my own abusement it's not even funny. And yes, I only wear covered shoes. I'm ceonservative that way, so sue me... :D

p.s: If it's possible, I would have worn sneakers to work. Seriously!

Day 29 - Reading Cecelia Ahern!

2009-01-29T22:34:00.000+08:00

Yet another random shot. Here's a book that I am currently reading: A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern. I love her. There's just something about her writing that I love, it helps me imagine stuff that I wouldn't have imagined otherwise. Like in this book, the main character went to a place where missing things go. Interesting huh?

Anyway, I borrowed this book from Bharathi, one of my colleagues. She's my reading buddy now. She borrowed my books and I'm borrowing hers. :)

Day 28 - Sweet!

2009-01-28T17:24:00.001+08:00

I was in a pissy mood, so I enjoyed some of these candies I bought from Famous Amos last night. It's awesome!!

Why was I in a pissy mood? I was working on some work-related stuff when something went wrong with Word and I was not able to save it, despite the fact that I had been saving it religiously beforehand. Ugh!!

Day 27 - Candy Obsession

2009-01-27T19:12:00.000+08:00

Nothing interesting happened today, so here's a random shot of my current favorite candy. My brother once asked me whether I bought this candy by the bulk cos there's always this little container around. LOL!!

Day 26 - Bald-Headed Kid

2009-01-26T19:02:00.000+08:00

It's CNY!!! It's public holiday, so we just laze around at home. Supposed to go out to visit my dad's Chinese friend, Uncle Goh, but my sister and I decided against it due to foreseen circumstances (inside joke... LOL!)..

Just before the rest of the family went out to Uncle Goh's place, this little munchkin and his parents arrived from Bagan Datoh (my SIL's hometown) and we were surprised to see him bald-headed. Oh well, he's still my little cutie though. My sister said he reminded her of Ezran, our cousin, and I just have to agree...

Day 25 - Mission Possible!

2009-01-25T22:36:00.001+08:00

A few days ago, I decided to do something with my room. Basically, I love the room, but there's just something about the arrangement of the furniture that makes me feel closed up and there's really no room to breathe, hence the mission for today. I thought of enlisting the help of my sister but she refused to help, so I was left alone. Well, in the photo from my Day 6 post, you can probably see the black thing at the corner. That's the bookcase that separated the bed and my workspace. I love the arrangement until it got to be a bit suffocating and not to mention very hard to make the bed. I really struggled with that cos the space between the bookcase and the bed is very, very small. Anyway, fast forward to today, I just asked my brother to move the bookcase from beside the bed to the wall facing the bed. It's sooooo much better now!

This was after I (well, my brother actually) moved the bookcase and had to pile lots of stuff on the bed...

And this is after I had cleaned up all the mess..

Notice that my desk is now facing the window? Love it that way!!

Day 24 - Nephew & Niece's Day!!

2009-01-24T23:15:00.000+08:00

I went to sleep last night with a headache and woke up with one too. Ugh, it sucks! So I spent the day in bed just lying around and watching Felicity. But my brothers came home today so seeing my nephew and niece are definitely the highlight of my day..

My eldest brother and his family just stopped over on the way back to his wife's hometown, so we get to spend some time with my cute nephew, who now gets very (and I do mean VERY) excited when it comes to feeding the fishes. He's obsessed, just like my niece was. And he loves getting his feet dipped in the water.. :)

Then, later on my 2nd brother came over and will be staying the night, which is gonna be fun cos I really miss my niece. She was happily playing around with my sister's IPhone and I was reminded of the time when she was a baby and loves playing with cellphones.

She also boasted about being able to write the alphabet 'A' now. She proudly showed me how she wrote the uppercase 'A' (that took almost a page by the way), so I asked her whether she could write the lowercase 'A', so she wrote a small, tiny, weeny uppercase 'A'. LOL!

Day 23 - New Backpack

2009-01-23T22:20:00.000+08:00

After a couple of weeks of school starting, I decided that I needed a new backpack, so we went out last night to buy this. It's so much easier to carry my stuff around now..

Day 22 - My Expertise

2009-01-22T22:04:00.000+08:00

A few students came into the office today looking for their lecturer (my officemate, Dash), wanting to buy books for their Intermediate Grammar class. She was not there, so I told them to come back later. Because I taught them Basic Grammar last semester, they assumed I'm teaching a Grammar subject as well for this semester, so they asked whether they can the books from me. But I didn't, so I told them that I had gone back to my expertise, teaching Writing. When I said that, I guess I realized that I had found the reason why I was so miserable last semester. I love learning about grammar but I hate teaching about them. Writing, on the other hand, is different. I love learning about writing and I love teaching them. It's a familiar subject to me, where everything fits and I don't really have to find the reasons of everything, just in case the students decided to be a smart ass and asked about why the rules is this way and the rules is that way. :D

Day 21 - Multi-tasking!

2009-01-21T21:58:00.001+08:00

This is basically how I spent my nights nowadays: scrapping while watching some kind of TV shows or movies on the laptop. Right now I'm watching Felicity. I know it's an old show from early 2000 but I've never watched this show before and now is the time to do so. I know that people seem to think that it's pointless to watch something while you're doing something but I guess that's just the way I am, I like to do multiple things at the same time. Well, some of the time anyway.

Day 20 - Excavator!

2009-01-20T22:07:00.002+08:00

I came back from work early and this was what I found at the backyard. My mom had mentioned that they would be getting the fish pond covered up but I didn't know that it would be this soon. Oh well, it's about time, really. The fish pond had been abandoned for soooo long, with its ugly ass of a bridge! It used to be such a great source of entertainment for me and my siblings when we were younger and had just moved into this home.

Here's a photo that I took later on in the afternoon. The pond is covered (well, at least most of it!) and you can actually see the land in our backyard. Before this, there used to be only trees and trees and trees back there. Needless to say, the times that I ever went over there can be counted with one hand. My parents had been saying that they wanted to build homes for their daughters if we ever get married. LOL!! Anyway, I used to think that the land is much, much bigger but apparently it's not...

Day 19 - The Time Part 2

2009-01-19T21:55:00.000+08:00

This is one of my prized possession. I know, crazy to say that a watch is a prized possession but I always felt naked without a watch and this watch is just perfect, just nice. It's not too big, not too small either. I have had this watch since about two years ago, when I got it from my dad as a birthday present. Last year, a couple of months before my birthday, I misplaced it and it got lost. Around that time, I was already thinking of asking my dad for another watch, but guess what?My mom found it in one of the drawers JUST before my birthday. LOL!

Day 18 - On My Way To Town...

2009-01-18T21:52:00.000+08:00

Took this photo on the way to town to bring the car for a wash. Hung out with my sisters before that and that was always fun! :)

Day 16 - An Apple...

2009-01-17T18:02:00.002+08:00

Just a shot of an apple that one of my professors gave to us in class today. She promised to give them to us today and she did.. :)

Day 15 - Time

2009-01-15T17:51:00.000+08:00

Look at the time! It was 8.15am when I shot this photo, never mind the fact that I was already late for work and I was about 20 minutes away from my workplace. I guess one of the things that I love about my work is the flexible hours. Eventhough it formally says that working hours start at 8.15am, but it's still okay if we come a little bit late.

Day 14 - Happy Retirement, Dad!

2009-01-14T17:45:00.001+08:00

After years and years of working with KTM, my dad's working stint with them ended today. Here's a photo of all his stuff that he took back after cleaning up his office room. He had had a great time serving the company and now is the time for him to sit back and relax. But knowing my dad, he wouldn't be able to keep quiet at all. He already has a few jobs lined up for him and being a workaholic he is, he's totally ready to embrace the working life again, but moderately this time around. Whatever it is, I just wish that he would be happy with whatever decision he makes.

Day 13 - Cross Country!

2009-01-13T18:42:00.000+08:00

I was driving on my way back from work when I caught this sight. Stuck in a jam, I quickly whipped out the camera and shot this shot. They are actually school kids who just came out of the school compound for their annual cross country race. I remembered taking part in one, back in the days when I was still in school and it's compulsory for us to do this thing.

Day 12 - Faculty of...HELL!

2009-01-12T17:01:00.000+08:00

Out of all the faculties in the university, Faculty of Engineering is not exactly my favourite place. I always dreaded it at the start of semester when I found out that I would have to teach students from that faculty. Not to overgeneralize or anything stupid like that but I have always had some kind of problems while teaching students from this faculty.

Day 11 - Bonded

2009-01-11T17:46:00.003+08:00

In my opinion, there's really nothing sweeter than seeing Azfar so close with his uncle.. It's so obvious that they both adored each other.. :)

Day 10 - What A Full (and Wonderful) Day!!

2009-01-10T23:31:00.002+08:00

The day started early!! I had Stats class first thing in the morning, came back and played around with my niece and nephew, then later on went to celebrate my dad's birthday. It's an early celebration because his birthday is gonna be on the 14th Jan and since it's the middle of the week, it would be very hard to gather everyone together, so we just decided to celebrate it tonight. There are so many photos that could have defined the day but these two really stood out!

Just the other day, I was thinking that it had been awhile since Syara (my niece) asked me to play with a camera. Today, she asked me for the 'small camera', the point & shoot that my sister had been using. So I gave it to her and watched her took pictures of my sister, her cousin and random stuff that she deemed beautiful. It was really funny to see her like that, the way she would instruct her 1 year old cousin to smile, not to go too fast so that she could capture him, etc, etc. When I plugged in the card to transfer some photos, I was expecting to see shots of Azfar's head getting cut off, his backside, just the face, etc, etc, but definitely not THIS!! It's cute, huh?? I was surprised that she managed to capture this. And oh, please ignore the red light thingie. That's what happened when she half-covered the flash with her fingers. I first thought of editing the photo to take away the red light thingy, but this was how it happened and I don't think I'm gonna edit it out.. :)

And here's my second photo of the day. This is the place where we went to have my dad's birthday dinner. Mum insisted on coming here and we had no idea why at first, until it was the time to go and Dad told us that it was the first place that my parents went for a date. She would come over to KL from her hometown and would leave my very young uncle with her eldest sister and go on a date with Dad. Sweet! So glad that we could share this moment together as a family.. :)

Day 9 - Reading!

2009-01-09T22:23:00.001+08:00

I love reading! In fact, I have always loved it, even as a child and remembered asking for a stack for Enid Blyton's books for my 6th birthday. But lately, I haven't done that much reading due to time constraint. Sometimes I bought books with the intention of reading them straight away but never did. It would always be a while before I get to finish the books.

Dash, Kala and Thina picked me up at 11.30 am so that we can go for our classes together. The class is not until 3pm but they had to go and clean up the room they rented in PJ, so they dropped me off at the faculty and went to the house. While waiting for them, here's the book that I read. Thankfully it kept me company until 2pm when Sundari showed up and we had a chat.. :)

Day 8 - Office Communication

2009-01-08T23:15:00.003+08:00

I remembered on the very first day that I reported for duty back in August 2007, Ms. Kim (she was one of the Head of Programme of the faculty) told us to install Skype on our computers so that it's easier to communicate since we couldn't have individual phones in our office. Skype was the only choice back then cos somehow Yahoo! Messengers couldn't be installed (but we later found a way to remedy that). Since then, me and my officemates had been communicating through Skype instead of just going to each other's offices. Well, sometimes we do that too, but most of the time, we just Skype each other, which is kinda funny cos our offices are just a few steps away from each other.. I even Skype-d with Dash who is sitting directly in front of me. We would do it if we want to gossip and didn't want anybody else to know, especially if there are students or other people in our room. Each day, I look forward to that kind of communication... Sad, I know.. :)

Day 7 - Music = Soul

2009-01-07T22:23:00.002+08:00

Here's a photo of my 'music player' playing one of the songs by an artist I'm currently listening to: Kate Voegele. Love her!! Anyway, one thing that I love about driving to work is the fact that I get to crank up the music in the car and sing my heart out, without anyone caring what I do and what I sound like. I guess that was why I didn't like it if anyone is in the car with me during that time. I usually use that 40 minutes as a me-time, to psych myself for what lies ahead. I'm using my cellphone as the music player cos radio sucks and I love being able to listen to what I want. I guess I never got around to burn a CD of my favourite music or something. :D

Day 6 - The Bed is Made!

2009-01-06T18:46:00.004+08:00

I was wondering what kind of photo to take after a long day at work (where I do nothing, except for scrap and watch movies by the way) when I entered my room and was greeted with this sight. Hey, there's actually a bed there!!

Well, I make the bed every morning but there's always a pile of stuff on it, like my laptop, books, magazines, hair clips, etc, etc, but I guess that was the way I like it cos it's easier to reach for stuff. But today, our helper came, so she tidied up for us, hence this sight, which I love! But knowing me, it will only take a matter of minutes to mess it up again. Oh well...

I'm off to go and watch the latest One Tree Hill episode! I'm so addicted to that show...

Day 5 - Water on the mirror

2009-01-05T21:05:00.004+08:00

The day did not start well at all! It was foggy, making it VERY hard to drive and it makes me feel as if I'm in Forks. LOL!! School is starting too so the route that I take to go to work in congested, which makes it even harder to drive. I hate days like these.

It's a good day at work today though. A group of my diploma students came and we chatted for a bit. They will be going out for their teaching practice next semester and I am so gonna miss them. Love those kids. There are only 4 years of age difference between us, so that's cool. They still respected me as their teacher, but at the same time, we're free to talk about anything we want. And there was no class at all today because there was some problem with the timetables and all, and apart from an hour meeting with my superior (or at least one of them), I was just sitting in my office and scrapping while watching a movie. LOL! What a life I lead huh? But this won't last long. Work will be piling up in no time, I can guarantee that.

Anyway, it was quite sunny today but towards the end of the working day, it started to rain. I love rain!! Well, I used to hate it when it rained cos I used to take a road that is always full of mud so by the end of the day, my car would always look like a tractor than the cute little car it is. But a couple of months ago, a friend of mine showed another way to go to the campus (via the bridge over the river), so I had been taking that road instead and my car stayed clean for a long time compared to last time.

Here's a photo that I took while waiting to get on the bridge. It's a small bridge and can only allow one side of the traffic to go through while the other side have to wait. See the cars waiting behind me? The line had never been that long before!!

Week One Layouts

2009-01-04T18:55:00.006+08:00

I managed to do four layouts this week. I'm planning on doing one for each day, so let's just hope that time will be on my side, alright? :)

I am really enjoying this project. I'm hoping that once I start work again tomorrow, I will be able to devote some time to this.

Day 4 - The View from My Window

2009-01-04T18:11:00.003+08:00

For the past month, I had been doing work on my bed and for the first time in a long time, I brought the laptop to my desk by the window, next to the bookshelves that separated my work area and the sleeping area. Anyway, I just thought that I would take a photo of the view I looked out at sometimes while I work. It wasn't really beautiful. In fact, it's down right hideous cos it overlooks our neighbour's yard and they always had some kind of construction thing going.

Day 3 - Already Crumbling

2009-01-03T16:04:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I posted on my other blog about how I wanted to lose weight as part of my goal this year but on the way back from my Stats class today (the first one!!) I asked my sister to stop by the McDonald's drive through cos I wanted to buy McFlurry. We decided against it but stopped at 7 Eleven and I bought myself a tin of Mister Potato chips. I wanted Jacker actually (cos it somehow reminded me of my good friend, Yana. LOL!) but there were only Sour Cream & Onion ones so I opted for Mister Potato instead. It had been awhile since I last had any chips and it just taste yummy. And yes, this will hopefully be my last chip for the year.. :)

Day 2 - A New Beginning

2009-01-02T16:40:00.001+08:00

This is my registration slip for my postgraduate course. I'll be doing M.Ed in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) at Universiti Malaya, one of the most prestigious (and not to mention the oldest) universities in Malaysia. I'm scared and nervous but at the same time happy and excited to be going on this journey. What a fitting start to a new year. New year, new chapter. I can't wait to see what the future would bring.

Day 1 - Sleeping Angel

2009-01-02T07:34:00.001+08:00

My eldest brother came over today to drop off his son for us to babysit. Azfar cried like mad when his mother had to go and it took us awhile to calm him down. We tried everything and nothing seemed to work. In the end, it was my dad who managed to make him sleep. Miracle of all miracle cos he had been crying and crying before that and once my dad took him from my sister, he was quiet. He took quite a long nap that morning and looked so cute in his sleep that I couldn't resist taking this photo.

Introduction...

2009-01-01T16:00:00.000+08:00

So I don't do well with peer pressure. LOL!!

Anyway, seeing that most of the people that I know is doing the Project 365, I thought I might just give it a shot. I might suck at it or I might just leave it hanging in a few weeks but what matters most is that I'm doing it right now. I don't want to do it at first cos I don't wanna feel committed to it but then I thought 'what the heck? just do it!', so here I am...